CheckThis: Getting Creative With a Single Web Page

Creating a website and a blog can be a lot of fun, and also a lot of work at times. There are some great resources out there to help you make quick blogs and websites, but the one thing that is wrong with them, is that you are expected to have a lot of posts or pictures which take up more than one page. What if you just want to post one thing and that is it? To go through all of the hassle of creating a website or blog is too much work for just one post.

This is where CheckThis can come in very handy. It takes blogging and creating a website and strips it down to its simplest form. CheckThis puts a whole new spin on making a web page and after playing with it for a bit, I can see how useful this web app can really be.

Getting Started

The basic concept of CheckThis is that when you use the app, you are creating just one web page and that is it, not many pages or a blog where you are going to post all the time. Think of it as a place on the web where you want to put up a flyer or an image for others to see.

When you first start with CheckThis, you don’t even have to sign up for an account if you don’t want to. The whole goal is to make the process as simple as possible for you. When you start to create your page, you have four options to start with. The first one is called the “Tell” option. This type of page is strictly for text entry. Maybe you need to write an essay, or you want to write a letter to someone; really any type of text entry that you can think of can be put in this option.

"Tell" Template

The second option is the “Sell” page. This is where if you want to sell something on the internet and you don’t want to necessarily have to go through eBay or Craigslist. You are provided with a template to put a picture of the item, the price as well as a “Purchase now” button, which will link to your Paypal account, and also a text box where you can describe the item.

"Sell" Template

The third option is called the “Hire” page. This template is also pretty obvious as to what it is used for, posting a job opening. You are given a template to add a job title, description and a contact box.

"Hire" Template

If none of these interest you or you want to make your own, you can also feel free to customize your own page. When you design your own page, you can add text, images, videos, links, and apps, which consist of a contact box, a payment box, and/or a polling app. You can really get creative with your own customized page and it is really easy to set up.

Customize Your Own

Appearance and Settings

Once you know what kind of page you want to make you can also play around with the appearance and the settings of it. You can change the background by using the preset backgrounds that are given to you or you can also upload your own. The color can also be manipulated by using the preset palettes that is offered or you can change the colors to the different parts of your page.

Appearance Options

In the settings you can set the visibility as well as the expiration of the page. Let’s say you want only a certain group of people to see your page, you can choose between a private page as well as a public one. Also, if you don’t want your page to be accessible after a month for whatever reason, you can change this setting as well. You can either change the expiration of the page to a week, month or never. This is a handy feature, but I wish they gave you more options for the expiration date.

Settings

Publishing and Sharing

Once you are done customizing your page, you are now ready to publish it to the world or your friends. Your page is published with its own unique url that you can share out using Twitter, Facebook, Google +, or email.

Sharing Your Page

Once your page is viewed by others, your page can be very interactive as well. People can comment on the page, “like” it, as well as share it out to others on their social networks. As the creator of the page you can also comment as well and see how many “likes” and views your page got.

Page Interaction

Simple, Yet Powerful

CheckThis is one of those apps that make it so easy for you to use, but yet they have built in features that make it so powerful. As I started to make different pages, I found it very intuitive and could quickly make a page for whatever I needed it for.

But what really makes this web application stand out is the wide range of things that I could find to use it for. For example, I have a lot of items that I want to get rid of and sell. This is a great way for me to do that. I also take a lot of pictures of my little boy and sometimes instead of just putting the pictures of an event up on say Picasa, this is a much better way to do that and I can share the event with my family and close friends.

Conclusion

Like I have said, the possibilities are endless when it comes to the types of pages you can come up with using CheckThis. The more I used it, the more I realized that single page sites can actually be useful. CheckThis is free to use and I would love to even see a paid version of the app where you can get more powerful features. You should go and check it out and let us know what kind of creations you can come up with.